{"id":4176,"date":"2026-07-21T22:18:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T21:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4176"},"modified":"2026-08-05T14:05:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T13:05:31","slug":"bergen-norway-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/bergen-norway-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Bergen, Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we visited the final port on our 8-day itinerary, Bergen.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be not quite the adventure we’d originally planned. Our original plan was to take the funicular railway up to the top of the hill and walk as far as we could, on the higher hiking trails, within the time allowed. In the end, it was the cost of the railway that changed our mind. A one-way ticket is \u00a320 (\u00a340 for the two of us), while a return is \u00a335 (\u00a370 for the two of us. When it came down to it, we just didn’t fancy spending that kind of money at this point in time, so we went looking for an alternative route up the hill that didn’t involve purchasing any tickets at all.<\/p>\n

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It turns out there are plenty of possible routes up the hill to Floyen, which is where the funicular railway ends, and the high-level trails and visitor attractions begin. We chose one from Maps.Me that looked promising, and which was perfectly okay until it wasn’t. Our route took us up through Bergen surburbia and into the wooded hiking areas, where the path we were following started to become noticeably difficult to navigate and increasingly steep and unpredictable. We pushed on a short way, but our unfamiliarity with the route just kept feeding the growing concern that we’d made a huge mistake. In the end, we took the sensible decision to backtrack down the hill and rejoin one of the larger, more user-friendly pathways that wheedled its way up to the top. All of which, naturally, took much longer than we’d originally expected, or budgeted for (time-wise).<\/p>\n

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We did eventually arrive at Floyen, but there was only enough time left for us to walk to the area known as Granbakken, watch the boats on Skomakerdiket Lake, and take in the panorama from Floyen before walking back down the hill to the town. It’s clearly the school holidays here, as there are lots of families about, and many other visitors (there was also another, large cruise ship in port). The truth is; we’d never seen it quite so busy… the panorama steps by the the railway terminal, overlooking the town, was packed.<\/p>\n

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Once back down at sea level, we walked back towards the ship, pausing to enjoy the Bryggen (which was also extremely busy), and walking through the grounds of Sverresborg Festning, a fortress right by the port.<\/p>\n

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We now have two final sea days, and two classes, to go, before we arrive back in Southampton, and our mini adventure will be over.<\/p>\n

Here are a handful of random observations\/differences between the Saga experience and the Fred Olsen experience…<\/p>\n

[1] Fred Olsen security scan all their passengers every time they come back onto ship having been in port. This is not something that happens on Saga (only crew have to scan their bags and belongings). It’s not a major pain, but it can slow boarding down if there’s a queue on the gangway.<\/p>\n

[2] The informal dining area on the Borealis is very canteen-like, and a little manic at times; Saga’s Grill has a little more class to it.<\/p>\n

[3] Only very few cabins on the Borealis have balconies. Our cabin was on the Promenade deck, which meant people were walking constantly past the window. That said, you cannot see in through the window (we thoroughly tested it on the first day).<\/p>\n

[4] The water pressure in the showers in our Borealis cabin was extremely low – barely any shower pressure at all, in fact… quite puny (whereas the showers on the Saga ships are excellent).<\/p>\n

[5] There were no free Shuttle buses in the ports.<\/p>\n

While all of this might seem like the odds are unfairly stacked against the Borealis, there were some thumbs-up moments. Firstly, from my perspective as an art tutor; having to give only one class of 30 per sea day means our mornings are free, making the days far more relaxed. Secondly; opening the front (forecastle) deck for passengers when cruising the fjords is brilliant. Finally – and most importantly – at mealtimes, if requested, vanilla ice cream can be served in massive chocolate cones.<\/p>\n

We’ll be back on the Borealis next month, for another 8-day trip to Norway, featuring a couple of new ports (for us). After that, in September, we’ll be back on Saga’s Spirit of Discovery, sailing to Istanbul… bring it on!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today we visited the final port on our 8-day itinerary, Bergen. It turned out to be not quite the adventure we’d originally planned. Our original plan was to take the funicular railway up to the top of the hill and walk as far as we could, on the higher hiking trails, within the time allowed. In the end, it was...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[43,28,42,4],"tags":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Peter Woolley","author_link":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/author\/painter01\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/bergen_03-300x169.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Borealis<\/a>","Cruises<\/a>","Fred Olsen<\/a>","Norway<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Borealis<\/span>","Cruises<\/span>","Fred Olsen<\/span>","Norway<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 weeks ago","modified":"Updated 1 week ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 21st July 2026","modified":"Updated on 5th August 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 21st July 2026 10:18 pm","modified":"Updated on 5th August 2026 2:05 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4176"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4182,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions\/4182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}